


Lost Boy

by Ginny_Potter



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant until CA:CW included, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, From CA:FA to CA:CW, M/M, Peter Pan References, Teenage Bucky&Steve, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 22:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20589974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginny_Potter/pseuds/Ginny_Potter
Summary: “Where are we?” Bucky asks, looking around. There are palms, and a white sandy beach. The vegetation is thick and crickets and other strange animals – birds? – trill and warble in the night. It looks like a tropical island. He remembers Steve obsessing over some book about Caribbean adventures. He remembers playing pirates on the block down the docks. He remembers tripping over fishnets and laughing with scraped knees.“The Neverland,” Steve says cheerfully.





	Lost Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
This is something that kept poking at me after listening to Lost Boy by Ruth B. I advise you to listen to it while reading.  
It's not a Peter Pan!AU. It is basically a way in which Bucky tries to cope with everything that happens to him, a sort of dissociation. It should have been longer and include the terrible Endgame finale but then I decided I won't accept it as canon, so.  
If there are any Russian speakers, please feel free to correct my Google Translate Russian. Gosh, I hate not knowing languages.  
I am not a English native speaker, so point out mistakes, please!  
Thank you. <3

There was a time when I was alone

Nowhere to go and no place to call home

My only friend was the man in the moon

And even sometimes he would go away, too

Then one night, as I closed my eyes

I saw a shadow flying high

He came to me with the sweetest smile

Told me he wanted to talk for awhile

He said, "Peter Pan, that's what they call me

I promise that you'll never be lonely, " and ever since that day

I am a lost boy from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan

And when we're bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from Captain Hook

"Run, run, lost boy, " they say to me

Away from all of reality

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe

Believe in him and believe in me

Together we will fly away in a cloud of green

To your beautiful destiny

As we soared above the town that never loved me

I realized I finally had a family

Soon enough we reached Neverland

Peacefully my feet hit the sand

And ever since that day

I am a lost boy from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan

And when we're bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from Captain Hook

"Run, run, lost boy, " they say to me

Away from all of reality

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Wendy Darling

Even Captain Hook, you are my perfect story book

Neverland, I love you so

You are now my home sweet home

Forever a lost boy at last

Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Wendy Darling

Even Captain Hook, you are my perfect story book

Neverland, I love you so

You are now my home sweet home

Forever a lost boy at last

And for always I will say

I am a lost boy from Neverland

Usually hanging out with Peter Pan

And when we're bored we play in the woods

Always on the run from Captain Hook

"Run, run, lost boy, " they say to me

Away from all of reality

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Neverland is home to lost boys like me

And lost boys like me are free

Ruth B. – Lost Boy

Bucky finds the book inside a half-collapsed cottage in northern France. The people who lived there must have ran away in a rush. The rusted colored cover is blackened by soot and dampened by humidity. He opens it. The title is written in French in elegant oblong letters, framed by a delicate silk-screen printing of a young elvish boy; below it a short sentence is scribbled in a lopsided cursive.

_Pour Guendoline, mon Pays Imaginaire._

He brushes his thumb on the ruined corner, the burnt paper crumbles under his touch. Dernier has been bugging him on his French for months now; well, time like any other to improve. He closes it and slips it inside his peacoat.

He knows the story.

*

The first time he dreams about it, it is in the Soviet base, the one controlled by the eastern wing of HYDRA, the one before Zola’s roaring comeback. There is a man looming over him, before he loses consciousness. He has a surgical mask and a headset, and his head is surrounded by the halo of a roundish lamp. Like a saint. Like a savior. In the medical induced dizziness, Bucky thinks it looks like the Moon in those very dark nights in the Ardennes.

He becomes the man in the Moon. They all become the men in the Moon.

He closes his eyes and sees the real Moon. It’s huge and round and full of craters, like the wheels of cheese his mom used to put in the cellar to mature. He raises a hand to poke at the cheesy Moon – it’s so big it must be close – and his forefinger his chubby, like a child’s. He hears a giggle and turns to his right.

“Your ma will kill us if we put our fingers in the cheese. She will know, Buck,” Steve smiles and there is a gap between his front teeth. He is small and scrawny and has messy blond hair and his eyes are so, so bright. His voice is squeaky, still chirping like a girl’s.

He is a young boy. They both are.

Bucky tilts his head. “I ain’t gonna tell her.”

Steve wrinkles his nose – too big for his face – and shrugs. “She will _know_, Bucky.”

Bucky looks back at the Moon and it’s not full anymore. It looks like a sickle. It’s still big, though, close to the sea. Bucky wants to sit astride its lower hook and fish with a rod.

Steve giggles again. Bucky reckons he is not thinking about things, he’s saying them. Otherwise, how would he know? Well. It’s Steve. Steve knows almost everything about him. He knows things about Bucky even Bucky doesn’t.

“You can bet on it, jerk,” he giggles again. Not supposed to say bad words.

Some other things he doesn’t know. Some other secrets are well kept.

“Where are we?” Bucky asks, looking around. There are palms, and a white sandy beach. The vegetation is thick and crickets and other strange animals – birds? – trill and warble in the night. It looks like a tropical island. He remembers Steve obsessing over some book about Caribbean adventures. He remembers playing pirates on the block down the docks. He remembers tripping over fishnets and laughing with scraped knees.

“The Neverland,” Steve says cheerfully. “Come on, they are waiting for us.” He gets up and Bucky notices their legs have been dangling from a wooden pier. Steve’s wearing a strange greenish tunic which ends right before his knobby knees with a leather belt and frayed hems. He’s barefoot. Bucky gets up and brushes his palms over his slacks. They are shabby but still soft, slightly discolored. He does have suspenders, they cut into his bony, naked shoulders.

“Who is?” he asks, following Steve. Their small feet sink in the sand and Bucky smiles at the tickling sensation. Steve’s leading and he is moving swiftly, choosing to jump on beached trunks when they encounter them, chuckling at his own ability. His skin is pale, his hair almost white, bathed in moonlight.

“The Lost Boys,” he answers.

*

They take everything from him.

First, every material thing. His knives. His holsters. His clothes. His dog-tags. The name Winifred Barnes shines for an instant in front of his eyes. They take something from the inner pocket of his peacoat. It’s the book.

“Что это? Книга?”[1]

There is cruel disbelief and scorn in the words. Bucky can recognize that, even if he doesn’t know what they mean.

He watches them burn it with a blowtorch, dried tears on his cheeks.

*

The Neverland is beautiful.

Steve and Bucky observe it from the top of the highest tree of the island. Steve has a telescope in his hands, eye-socket pressed against the scope – when Bucky takes a glimpse at it with the corner of his eye, it looks like the gunsight of a rifle. The day before, they snatched it from the satchel of Noodler. The dumb fella just left it back when he went checking out an unusual noise during his patrol – just a parrot, but hey, dumb fella.

“Tomorrow we retrieve the pendant of Tiger Lily,” he says, resolutely. “Foggerty hid it near Marooner’s Rock.”

“It’s dangerous,” Bucky says, brows furrowed, then grins at Steve’s scowl. “What’s the plan?”

  
The Lost Boys are enthusiastic of Steve’s plan. Bucky knows their names. They are his comrades, his pals, he fought with them in a thousand skirmishes against their enemies.

The Nazis.

No.

The Pirates.

Bucky looks at them, lined up in front of him and Steve, at attention. He’s Steve’s second in command, he doesn’t have to stand at attention. He crosses his arms and smirks. He knows all of them like the back of his hand.

Dum-Dum, Morita, Jones, Falsworth, Dernier.

He knows their names. He knows what they can do. They are his comrades, his pals, his brothers.

“Tiger Lily’s pendant has been stolen,” Steve announces, pompously. “We’ll retrieve it.”

Dum-Dum smirks. “Do you think Tiger Lily will give you a kiss when you bring her back her necklace?”

Steve blushes and Bucky’s guts clench.

“It’s a pendant,” Bucky blurts, annoyed.

Dum-Dum’s smug look doesn’t falter. “Maybe she’ll give a kiss to each of us.”

“Gross,” Morita says.

He’s the youngest. Girls are still dumb for him. Maybe, Bucky thinks, looking at the red pomes on Steve’s roundish face, girls should keep being dumb.

*

The men in the Moon always change.

All but one.

Bucky screams until he has no air in his lungs.

*

The first time he forgets his name, he dreams again about him, after months of nothing.

Ironic.

Cruel.

Bucky’s lying in the snow. No, in the sand. No, in his childhood bed in Brooklyn. It’s summer, the window is open, and the curtains blow like balloons. Something woke him up. It’s the family dog – did they have a family dog? Yes, the name is Nana, she is his and… he has siblings, doesn’t he? She is their nanny. Nana, nanny. Doesn’t sound right but it must be, he’s seeing it.

The big dog is yapping cheerfully, playing with… a shadow?

Bucky blinks and looks bewildered as a boy – he’s familiar, who is he? He has blond hair, they fall on his forehead – is trying to climb the window, to sneak out– but the strong breeze makes the window slam shut and the boy yelps and Bucky flinches and sits up.

The shadow lies severed between Nana’s paws.

Both boys look at it.

“Oh, bother,” says the boy without a shadow.

“Do I know you?” Bucky asks at the same time, cocking his head.

He raises his head, as if surprised he’s not alone. Bucky shivers: he is familiar, so, so familiar, it’s something in the defiant expression in his bright blue eyes. Very bright. Very blue. A big nose, too big for his face. Bucky blinks. There is a name in the back of his head, but he cannot grasp it, it’s almost physically pressing against his nape.

“Peter Pan, that’s what they call me,” he says, warily, almost in a singsong voice, irises moving quickly from the shadow to Bucky.

Nah. Doesn’t sound right. But okay.

“Nana,” Bucky warns automatically, when the dog starts to roll on the wooden floor struggling with the teenage-boy-shaped shadow; there is a stern tone in his voice he doesn’t recognize. “Quit it.”

The dog steps back, grumpily, and the shadow runs to Peter Pan – what kind of name is Peter Pan? sounds like the name a character of a book could have –, hiding behind him and shaking like a frightened rabbit.

“I’m sorry for my dog. She is usually well behaved,” he apologizes, because, even if the situation is fishy, his ma fed him good manners since he was a little rascal. Then, he adds. “Are you sure your name is Peter Pan?”

The boy looks at him funnily but doesn’t answer. Bucky shrugs sheepishly, wiggling a finger in a hole in the comforter. “It’s a strange name,” he decides to mumble, evasively.

“Not weirder than yours,” he shoots back and he sounds almost affronted. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

Bucky’s jaw falls. “How do you know my name?”

“You know me,” the chirping voice of the boy is suddenly deeper, sadder. “You’ve known me your whole life.”

*

“Sergeant James Barnes. 32557038.”

“Протри его.”[2]

“Sergeant James Barnes. 32557038.”

“Опять же.”[3]

*

He keeps dreaming him.

He remembers.

He keeps dreaming him.

He forgets.

*

Even when he forgets his own name, he comes back to the Neverland. He sees the faces of his friends, the Lost Boys, and he ruffles blond hair, tackling a scrawny boy – his best friend – to the ground, yowling with his arms thrown in the air, slipping inside moss covered hollow trunks.

In the Neverland, he is whole. His bones do not hurt, there is no infernal machine where he once had a flesh arm, there are no chairs, no needles, no electroshock, no pain.

He is free.

*

Time passes.

The man in the Moon changes.

And changes. And changes.

The languages change too, but he knows the men in the Moon always say the same things.

*

Bucky is playing Steve’s harmonica.

They are all sitting around the fire – a magical fire, lit by fairies, it sparkles purple tonight – and Bucky is cross-legged on the trunk of the Never tree they will saw the following morning, like they do every single morning. The Lost Boys are all around him, whistling and singing and laughing and dancing and stomping their feet on the ground and eating ripe, exotic fruits Bucky never bothered to learn the name of.

It’s a happy tune, but for some reason it makes him sad.

He stops playing when there is a rustling of leaves and Steve suddenly appears at the lower extremity of his hollow tree and behind him there’s…

“A lady?!” Dum-Dum jumps up, elated. He’s becoming quite interested in the fairer sex, lately, always running after the dames of the Indian village and trying to impress the mermaids, down in the lagoon.

The girl is beautiful, with bouncy brown locks and a burgundy nightgown, which she wears with the grace of a queen. She takes them all in with inquisitive eyes, they are the same chocolate shade of her curls, smart and full of light.

Steve opens his mouth. “She’s– ”

“A girl!”

“A dame!”

“Your giiiirlfriend?”

“She’s Peggy,” Steve interrupts, slightly embarrassed by the frenzied chitchat. His cheeks are red and he throws quick looks at Peggy, who is smiling, clearly amused.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. She has a thick accent, very round, very musical, very pretty. She is all pretty.

The Lost Boys hurry around her, asking thousands of questions, where does she come from, why is she there, how long is she staying, why is she with Steve, will she help them fight the Pirates. She answers promptly, straightforward as an arrow that hits its aim, determined, brave, beautiful. Bucky stays back, fiddling with the buckle of his suspenders, flicking it open, then closed. He looks at Steve, at his red cheeks, his mouth ajar, his blue eyes looking at this girl with wonder, with admiration, in awe.

Bucky likes girls. He likes dancing with Tiger Lily around the big bonfires at the Indian Village, and swimming with the mermaids, splashing them when they least expect, braiding their hair with flowers when they ask him, battling their long eyelashes. He likes playing with the fairies, chasing them in the woods and receiving magic trinkets when he frees them from the Pirates’ traps.

Peggy is a girl and Bucky likes her. He already knows he likes her. He likes her because she throws furtive looks at Steve when he is distracted, because she leans a little towards him even when her attention is focused on someone else, because she pays attention and commands respect with every fiber of her tiny body.

Bucky lifts the corner of his mouth, then goes back to the harmonica. Maybe Steve and Peggy will dance.

He plays a happy tune, but he feels sad.

*

The men in the Moon tell him to do things.

He does.

*

They run in the woods, they laugh, and they roll in the grass and they shush each other when the Pirates come close. Steve presses his palm against Bucky’s mouth to muffle his hysterical laughter and Bucky licks it and Steve squeaks and Mr Smee and Gentleman Starkey spot them and they have to run, dangling from one vine to the other, screeching like monkeys.

Bucky would run forever with Steve.

“This is home,” he tells Steve. “I like coming back here.”

“What do you mean, coming back? You are always here. Always here with me,” Steve’s eyes are very blue, he doesn’t understand.

“No,” Bucky says, melancholic and resigned. “No, I’m not.”

*

His dreams keep him sane.

Just.

He doesn’t know that.

*

The Neverland doesn’t exist. It’s not called Never-land for nothing. It’s the place where all the things that aren’t supposed to happen, happen.

In the Neverland, Steve is Bucky’s first kiss. Their lips meet while they are sitting astride of the sturdiest branch of their favorite tree. They are eating peaches, teeth sinking in the soft, sweet pulp, juice running down their chins, dripping on their thighs. Bucky looks at Steve licking his forearm to prevent a couple of drops to reach his elbow and Bucky’s heart explodes. He grabs Steve by the front of his green tunic and smashes his lips against Steve’s. It’s sticky and awkward and off centered.

And it’s so perfect Bucky realizes it can’t be real.

*

He doesn’t dream for years.

He’s lost.

He knows he is, somewhere deep down.

Somewhere where Bucky Barnes is dying inside the Winter Soldier.

He’s almost there. Almost forgotten.

And then, he comes back.

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell his Bucky?”

He may not know who Bucky is anymore.

But he knows the man on the bridge.

He _knows_ him.

*

“Come with me,” Peter Pan says.

Nana growls.

Bucky frowns. “Where?”

“Home.”

*

“Bucky?”

The Soldier’s eyes widen as he takes in the astonished face of Steve Rogers.

*

A choked laughter gets stuck in his throat. “I am home,” he opens his arms, as if showing him the room. The wooden frame of the bed, the nightstand, the big window, the dresser with the elaborate mirror, some scattered toys, his beloved train set on the place of honor.

“Nah,” Peter Pan scoffs. “To the Neverland.”

Bucky licks his lips, and Peter Pan unties a satchel from his belt. He walks towards Bucky and, at the same time, he dips his hand inside. When he takes it out, he is holding a generous quantity of a sparkling powder in his fist. He sprinkles Bucky’s head with it and Bucky sneezes. Peter Pan giggles and something presses further against the back of Bucky’s head.

“What is it?” he asks, looking with fascination at the residual golden grains inside the satchel.

“Pixie dust,” Peter Pan says.

Bucky scoffs.

The boy lifts a corner of his lip and, again, he seems immensely sad – immensely old. “Believe me. Believe in you. Believe in us. Just believe, Bucky.”

*

“You know me.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Bucky, you’ve known me my whole life. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my friend.”

“You are my mission. You. Are. My. Mission.”

“Then finish it. Cause I’m with you to the end of the line.”

*

Bucky closes his eyes and feels his body move without him realizing how. Suddenly, they are flying. Through stars, through time, through space, holding hands so tightly their knuckles are white, a cloud of green and gold sparkles enveloping them.

Second star to the right.

_It was always supposed to be like this_. Bucky thinks. _We were always supposed to come home._

*

Bucky keeps dreaming of the Neverland, even when his memories start to come back. It helps him, he thinks, it heals him, it grounds him.

It breaks his heart.

He goes to sleep and he dreams of Steve even when it is too dangerous to _be_ with Steve for real, when _he_ is too dangerous to be with Steve for real. Even if he could, if he just allowed himself… He knows Steve is looking for him, he knows he won’t rest until he finds him, he knows he will never give up, probably wallowing in guilt over not looking for him seventy years before. Bucky hurts, knowing he is hurting Steve deeper than his murderous fists did on the helicarrier. He will have to face Steve, someday. But he is not ready.

His subconscious gives him peace. He goes to sleep and his friends are alive. He goes to sleep and he is home. He goes to sleep and a fourteen-year-old version of Steve Rogers tastes like peaches and makes moony eyes at a teenage Peggy Carter and everything is normal and right in the world.

Bucky buys the book again.

He finds it, almost by chance, on a stand near the river. In Romanian the title is _Peter Pan sau Băiețelul care a refuzat să crească_. He opens it. It is in good condition, a different edition, but no less elegant. This time, under the title there isn’t a dedication. He remembers the one in his old copy as if he had written it himself. _Pour Guendoline, mon Pays Imaginaire_. He remembers secretly thinking it was romantic. He remembers blushing at the mere thought. He remembers fantasizing about finding a Guendoline he could call his _Pays Imaginaire_. Maybe there was a Peggy Carter meant for him, something or someone worth surviving for.

He remembers knowing, deep down, that there is only one home for him.

The same home that saved him when he was losing his mind, without even knowing it. He didn’t know it, strapped on a chair, screaming his lungs out. Steve didn’t know it, buried alive in his ice tomb.

Bucky reads _Peter Pan_ as many times as the years they lost. He laughs bitterly when he realizes he never read the book in its original language.

He decides he will send a copy to Steve. He will send it to their old Brooklyn address because he is an old man with nothing to lose and a shattered soul. He wonders if Steve will ever receive it, one way or the other. He takes a pen and scribbles Steve’s name under the title.

_One day, I’ll come back home. _He adds underneath.

*

“Do you know me?” Peter Pan says when they land on the soft sand, on the shores near the Mermaids’ Lagoon.

“You’re Steve,” Bucky says.

And that’s it, honestly.

Everything lies there, in that simple concept. He knows Steve. He will always know Steve, in every lifetime, in every dream, in every heartbreak. Nothing and no one ever managed or will ever manage to take Steve Rogers from Bucky Barnes. He is embedded in his soul. He is home, the only certainty in the mess around him, inside him, he is his North Star. When Bucky closes his eyes, Steve is there, ready to lead him away in a place where they are happy, in a place that can never be, in a life that they will never have, a life where everything is beautiful and the people they love are alive and all that they need is a handful of pixie dust sprinkled on Bucky’s head.

But.

_But._

But then Steve Rogers is in his kitchen in Bucharest and Bucky Barnes didn’t even manage to mail the goddamn book.

_One day, I’ll come home._

There is no time.

There is never enough time.

And yet.

Something remains the same.

“Do you know me?” Steve Rogers asks standing in his kitchen in Bucharest.

“You’re Steve,” Bucky Barnes answers.

__________________________________________

[1] What is this? A book?

[2] Wipe him.

[3] Again.


End file.
